


these inconvenient fireworks

by hypotheticalfanfic



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/M, Fireworks, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-13
Updated: 2011-08-13
Packaged: 2017-10-22 13:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypotheticalfanfic/pseuds/hypotheticalfanfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which it's the Fourth of July in Pawnee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	these inconvenient fireworks

Pawnee, Indiana, is not known for heat waves. Murder of Native Americans, miniature horses, and obesity, yes. Heat waves, no. But Ben Wyatt is cursed, as everyone seems to know immediately upon meeting him, and he brings a heat wave with him to Pawnee. 

“It’s so hot,” Tom whines, bent over his chair as if his spine has melted away. He hasn’t said any sentence yet today that hasn’t included the word “hot,” and none of those have been his usual “That’s hot” usages. 

“How hot is it?” Leslie is clearly trying very, very hard not to puke from the heat, and apparently she has decided that treating every complaint about the temperature as the setup for an old vaudeville-style joke is the best way to accomplish that goal.

Ben is seriously considering just stripping down to his underpants. Luckily he remembers that today was He-Man day before he does so, because the sight of him in He-Man underpants would 1) effectively kill his chances with Leslie, probably 2) give Tom the impetus he needs to rise like a phoenix that tells really awful jokes and never lets anything go ever, and 3) get him fired, maybe. Well, maybe not. But it’s not important, because just then Jerry pops his head in the office, already cringing like he knows exactly what’s coming.

“Everyone hates you, Jerry,” and Tom has revived just a bit. He’s staring at Jerry as if the sheer force of his gaze could melt the man. In this heat, it’s not impossible. Ben should really get around to telling everyone to lay off Jerry, and he will. One of these days. When it’s not hot and Jerry didn’t just take the last Boston creme from the box of donuts,  _after_  he took all the lemon creme-filled ones. Ben adds his glare to Tom’s. Some things can’t be forgiven.

“Just wanted to tell you that maintenance said it’d be another hour before the air’s back on.”

“We hate you even more now, Jerry.”

Ben had forgotten that April was there, laying on the floor behind Leslie’s desk, until just then. Yet another reason not to strip: April hated him enough already, probably, no reason to add to it. 

“Ben.” Leslie looks up, meets his eyes. “Ben, are you there?”

He glances around a little — he is still there, right? He hasn’t become invisible or anything? But he is in fact still sitting on the edge of Tom’s desk, corporeal and sweating like a…thing that sweats a lot. “Yeah, Leslie, what’s up?”

“Ben, I need to get out of here.” She closes her eyes, and he takes the opportunity to stare at her face, to soak her in, because when he does that when she’s looking sometimes she frowns at him. Not like she’s mad, exactly, but like she’s confused. And anyway, he likes to look at her when she’s not putting on a face for anyone’s benefit, which she is really good at doing. “JJ’s has air conditioning.” She pauses dramatically. ”And waffles.” Another dramatic pause. He’s pretty sure she’s doing it to breathe, not for effect, but you never really know with Leslie. ”Yes.” She opens her eyes, and he quickly schools his features back to normal. “Let’s go.”

—-

JJ’s does in fact have both air conditioning and waffles, luckily, and they stay there for the hour it takes to fix the A/C in the office. 

Leslie eats four waffles with more whipped cream than Ben has ever seen on any four foodstuffs in his life, combined. He drinks eight glasses of sickeningly sweet lemonade that he actually kind of hates, but Leslie made him order it because it “sounded cold,” which he doesn’t really understand. But after the fourth glass, he kind of can’t taste it. Or anything, actually. Either way, he doesn’t hate it anymore.

Their legs touch under the table seven times, which he is pretty sure is a statistically significant number under any conditions. Leslie laughs at his jokes and also at some things that weren’t jokes, but that’s okay because she’s laughing and not looking broken-down or exhausted.

—-

And then it’s the Fourth of July, and Leslie brings him a sparkler. 

The heat wave broke, finally, and it’s kind of cloudy and windy, but the Parks department is never going to not have the Fourth of July fireworks show. Except that one year when half the town burned because of a misplaced Roman candle. But other than that, fireworks shows are a Pawnee tradition. 

For Ben, though, fireworks have never been a thing. Not really. He likes them all right, he supposes, but they’re really loud and messy and they make everything smell like gunpowder and burnt paper. And he had a bad experience in junior high with a pack of Black Cats that isn’t up for discussion or reminiscence. 

But Leslie brings him a sparkler, and smiles at him, and her face in that weird half-light all around them makes him forget the smell and the noise and the fact that they really don’t have the money for this in the budget. All he sees is her. He opens his mouth to say something — “I love you,” “Marry me,” “You’re every dream I ever had all wrapped into an infuriating and adorable and frighteningly enthusiastic package,” — but her eyes widen and she points over his shoulder.

“Look!” A huge blue firework is blooming over the sky, and the real show has begun. “I love fireworks so much, don’t you?”

She’s not looking at him, so he can let the small smile that’s just for Leslie spread over his face as he answers, “Yeah, they’re beautiful.” It’s cliche, so overdone that he feels awkward and foolish for the next twenty minutes while he watches Leslie watch fireworks. He forgets about the sparkler he’s holding until it spits a spark on his brand-new shoes and marks them with a little black dot.

Every time he wears those shoes afterward, he looks at that dot and swallows the Leslie Smile, because it’s stupid and something from a movie but it really happened, which is pretty awesome.

**Author's Note:**

> [title from "Stray Italian Greyhound" by Vienna Teng]


End file.
